Thursday, October 11, 2007

Welcome to the fourth edition of Frozen Assets. Every week I offer general tips for successful futures wagering and I examine odds in the hockey futures market. This week, I will present my top five list of sportsbooks offering hockey futures and we will examine and analyze the Stanley Cup futures market.

Matchbook is a betting exchange, which means that one player will offer odds and another player will match those odds. Matchbook then takes a 2% commission on the player’s net winnings. Matchbook focuses on North American Sports and presents their odds in North American format.

Benefits:

A. Since Matchbook is a betting exchange, you can buy and sell your bets. Thus you can hedge your bets by betting on a team you have already bet to win the Stanley Cup to lose.

B. When you are matched, you generally receive better than average odds on any team to win. In futures betting the house often takes a larger percentage then regular betting. At Matchbook the house has no advantage, they just take 2% of your net winnings as commission.

Drawbacks:

A. There is not enough interest in NHL hockey on Matchbook to ensure you will receive action. Your offer on the Red Wings to win the Stanley Cup at 100/1 is useless if no one matches it. Even reasonable wagers are often not matched because there are not enough people paying attention and not enough volume.

B. Though in the past Matchbook has offered conference and division betting, they currently only offer Stanley Cup Futures betting.

B. Occasionally Gamebookers will offer odds that do not make sense. These odds come out of nowhere. For example, last year, ¾ of the way through the season, the offered the Canucks at odds of 33/1 to win the conference; almost double what they were being offered at everywhere else.

Drawbacks:

A. Gamebookers does not consistently offer futures odds; sometimes they will take the futures odds off the board for a few days.

B. Other than the occasional aberration, it can be difficult to find odds that are competitive with Betfair.

Stan James is a mid-size sportsbook that has been in the bookmaking industry since 1973. They specialize in live wagering and are the only sportsbook (other than wagerstreet for a brief stint in 1999) to offer live betting on hockey.

Benefits:

A. Stan James is the only sportsbook to offer division, conference, and Stanley Cup betting during the regular season.

B. Stan James is not afraid to give you favorable odds on certain teams. For example, last year they were constantly offering odds on the Islanders, Bruins, and Panthers significantly above what other books were offering.

Drawbacks:

A. They have low limits: you can only bet as much as will allow you to win $2300.

B. They do not accept American players.

If you have thoughts on other sportsbooks that you think should be added to the list, please share your opinion in the comments section.

The NHL season is underway. Although it is early on in the season, it is still surprising to hear that Buffalo is winless and Washington is undefeated. Here is a compilation of the best odds on each team to win the Stanley Cup (note I am no longer adding in the rating of the sportsbook – that’s research you can do yourself):

Some of those numbers make my eyes and my pants bulge. I'll leave it to you to figure out which numbers...

For illegal curve, I’m Ari Baum-Cohen.

About the writer: Ari Baum-Cohen’s first sports betting victory came in 1989 when he won his father’s office pool at age 8. Since then, he has been interested in many different types of sports betting. His first major futures win came in November of the 2001-2002 hockey season when he selected “field” (field included Jarome Iginla) at odds of 30/1 to win the National Hockey League goal scoring title.

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